


Swing of the Pendulum

by Legendaerie



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Doomed Timelines, Dream Bubbles, F/M, Gen, God Tier, Implied Relationships, Sadstuck, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-18
Updated: 2012-03-18
Packaged: 2017-11-02 02:50:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendaerie/pseuds/Legendaerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are only two ways to die as a God - Heroic, and Just.</p><p>No matter what, your lasting death must mean something good - something righteous, monumental, and for the betterment of all.</p><p>But can a death really be as meaningful as a life?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swing of the Pendulum

**Author's Note:**

> And this is probably all going to be ret-conned into obscurity, but thanks anyway Hussie for all the ship teases.
> 
> also oooooh my god wtf is coding

Inky black tentacles caressed Feferi's cheek, wiping away a shocked fuchsia tear.  
  
 __

_there there dear_

_youll be okay_ __  
__

  
"No!  Can't you see?"  
  
She screamed until her voice was hoarse, struggling again the metal hands holding her back  as she snarled and clawed in the direction of the massive black King.  
  
"You've... killed all my friends!  Everyone!  I can't live without them!"  
  
Around her, bodies were scattered, dripping blood in all colors of the rainbow.    
  
Gamzee, a smile still on his face.    
  
Tavros in a tangled mass of broken horns and smashed metal.  
  
Equius and Nepeta, shielding each other as best as they could.    
  
Kanaya's lipstick still on the Black King's warped carapace.    
  
Vriska clutching her dice.    
  
Karkat, the first to fight and the first to die.    
  
Terezi with his blood on her lips.  
  
Sollux with mind honey on his.    
  
But there was mostly blue from the myriad of Doomed Aradiabots; of the thousands that had initially arrived, only three remained.  
  
Eridan was hovering behind her, thin trails of purple blood oozing from the corners of his mouth and his eyes.  Perhaps it was tears, but by the way he eyed Karkat's mutant blood, she doubted it.  He said something - snide, comforting, it didn't matter.  
  
She was too angry to care.  The distorted voice, in a mockery of her lusus' hushed and gentle tones, only made her more furious.  
  
 _but my dear heiress  
  
you didn't need them anyway  
  
you don't need to beat the last boss to win_  
  
She was already wrapping her arms around Sollux's tattered body - or what was left of it from the devastating glub.  He'd been hit the worst, and she forced her shaking hands to scoop him up, to try channeling her Life powers.  
  
Pink magic fizzled and snapped, stirring the cooling  mustard yellow blood but not stitching, not mending, not fixing everything that had gone wrong since they started this battle.  
  
"Fef, leavve him be."  
  
She whirled on Eridan, snarling, and grabbed her 2X3dent without thinking.  Brandishing it at him, she had the satisfaction of seeing his fins tremble and he backed up.  
  
"SHUT UP!"  
  
He didn't understand - he'd never cared about anyone outside of the ocean or the history books.  Feferi clutched Sollux to her and sobbed brokenly into his beautiful, rich, tarnished golden blood.  
  


 

\- * -

 

They were staying in the Land of Wrath and Angels for the time being; just the two sea trolls and the last three Aradiabots.  All had absconded from the painted battlefield; four willingly, the fifth still in hysterics.

Even now, she was a broken troll, and his heart alternately burned with platonic hate and ached with pity - so much that even when a mysteriously surviving angel flew by with smoldering anger in its eyes, he had no desire to follow.

His words were kind, if a little pushy and desperate - his tone was sharp like shards of glass, still broken from his rejection. "If I wwas your moirail again, wwould it make ya feel better, Fef?"

She blinked, rubbing glassy eyes that seemed smaller somehow without her goggles.  She'd taken them off so she could still see through the tears and the haze of watery pink agony that was losing so many friends.  

Eridan couldn't sympathize with her.

He didn't really know what she was going through, after all.  He'd only really lost one friend, and she was curled up beside him, Vriska's dice in her small hands.  They'd taken little tokens from all of their friends as memorytrophies.  

It wwasn't a hunt or a vvictory, he'd said.

I still want to remember, she'd replied as she tucked Terezi's cane under her hand.

So there they were with the last three Aradibots in existence, a cane, a lance, some blue dice, two sickles, a lipstick chainsaw, a set of red and blue glasses, a broken bow, an animal skin cap, and three bottle of Faygo.

"Wwhat noww, then?"

Feferi looked up, cold hate in her eyes.  "We win. Somehow," and she whispered her 'H' so it was more of a suggestion than a sound, "we find a way to save them all."

\- * -

 

It took them a while - weeks, years, what did it matter?  

It took her a while, but she had it figured out.

Let's go to your Quest Cocoon, she'd suggested.

Wwhy not? he'd replied, not suspecting a thing.

It lay before them, round and simple, weathered and grey and reminding Feferi of the double headed coin she'd left with the blind Seer on the battlefield.  She swallowed, willing down the minnows swimming viciously in her protein and nutrient conversion sac.

Eridan had the decency to not plant his hands on his hips and swagger - instead he spoke to her in hushed, but still cold tones.

"Fef, I'm glad you're up an' walkin' again.  'S not good for you to be layin' around sobbin'.  Wwe gotta survvivve, you knoww?"

She stared at the back of his head for a long moment.  He stopped walking towards the cocoon.

"Fef?"

He was in the middle of turning when she hit him with all her strength with the side of her 2x3dent.  The sound was a sharp crack, and his head lurched back at crazy angle--

She stepped backward briefly, avoiding his eyes as they misted over in death.  The fall of his body was lighter than she expected - he was frailer than he acted.

Quickly, she pulled him more onto the bed, her hands shaking as she searched the skies for an angel.

For hope itself.

After an agonizing several moments, and just before she decided to try and revive him, a feather drifted down and landed on his cheek.  She pressed chaste lips to his mouth, a gentle kiss to promise his godhood, then stepped away and let the last angels do their work.

\- * -

He held hope itself in his hands - could see the feeble prayers drifting out from the dreaming dead, could sense instantly what mattered to those around him the most.  He hated his power.

Why should he care about the dreaming dead?  Why should he care about the wishes of those too weak to accomplish things themselves?

"Eridan," called a still sweet voice.

But it wasn't sweet to him.

He stared down at her, his eyes narrowed and his expression the epitome of cold indifference.  She meant nothing to him anymore.  

"I'm going to my land now.  Are you coming with me?"

"Maybe."

He flapped his delicate fairy wings, following all the white strings of her hope to where it was tied to other things - Sollux's glasses, which had replaced her goggles; the three Aradiabots; but most of the threads were tied to himself.

Experimentally, he reached out for one and was granted a vision of Feferi sleeping on her Quest Cocoon and him standing over her, Ahab's Crosshairs trained at her chest.

"You wwant it in the front or the back?" he sneered suggestively.

She colored for a brief moment, then her headfins flared as she gave him a two toned glare.

"Big things are at stake here, Eridan.  This is no time to be trying to fill your quadrants!"

He swooped down until he was inches from her face, his hot breath fogging up her glasses until her eyes were lost to his sight.

"Since wwhen did that stop you from jumpin' all over the fuckin' mustard blood?  Wwhy should I help you anywway?  Wwhat's in it for me?"

"You're the Prince of Hope, Eridan!  Doesn't that mean you're supposed to restore  hope that's been lost?  Be the champion in the darkest hour?"

She had taken a step back and her glasses had cleared - the black hate that had been fogging his mind cleared enough for him to see, briefly, the  girl he had once pitied with a passion that made him desperate.

It wasn't just her hopes tied to him.  All of his were still wrapped around her - even after everything that happened.  It didn't make sense, and he didn't want to trust these suspicious new powers.

"Hell if I knoww wwhat I'm supposed t' do, Fef," he sighed, then followed her hope-string to one of the Aradiabots.

He shook his head.

"Wwe can't use Ari t' time travvel.  But..."

A fresh trail of golden light peetered out into a gate in the distance outside.  

"That gate should take us there.  I think."

He scooped his heiress up awkardly - she was heavier than he was and it took concentration not to drop her - and flew towards the Gate, two Aradiabots in tow.

\- * -

 

Her Quest Cocoon was cold and not exactly inviting for a nap as she laid down carefully.  Eridan made her nervous now - there was not the same trust as their had been when they had been moirails, even though it had often come with constant feelings of exasperation.

 

"Wwhat noww?"

 

"I need to fall asleep."  She blinked alternately one eye and the other, trying to get used to the bicolored shades.  "Otherwise I might kill my dream self with the stress of remembering dying.  Or something," she forced a chuckle, drawing her legs closer to her body as she sat up.

 

There was a beep behind her, then all of the memorytrophies  they'd collected from the battlefield, along with an assortment of scalemates and horns, landed beside her in a cacophony of honks and clatters.

 

"My data concludes that this should be a sufficient pile."  An Aradiabot blinked her glowing eyes, then jetted off a short distance.  Feferi clambered up the pile carefully and looked up at Eridan hesitantly.

 

He was the only one of her friends left alive.

 

"Join me?"

He scowled.  "You really think a feelin's jam 's gonna mend our friendship?  I ain't gonna take ya back as a moirail, Fef.  That ship sailed."

She clenched her jaw.  "I was hoping I could have some company to help me go to sleep, too."

Even as he rolled his eyes and muttered about 'I can see all your hopes, Fef' he landed beside her, folding up his wings and wincing as something dug into his side.

They lay there in silence for a while, him studiously avoiding her eyes and playing with some of Vriska's dice, then testing the edge of one of Karkat's sickles.

"I'm sorry for culling you," she stared cautiously.  He snorted.

"I guess I wwas kinda a lousy moirail.  And I guess these fragile little hope powwers aren't so bad."  He tugged on something unseen between then, and she felt a little surge of pity.

"I'm still sorry.  I know you know that I'm doing this - all this - to save my friends.  And maybe they weren't your friends too--"

"I never said that," he interrupted her, swinging the sickle through the air.  "I knoww that I kept feedin' your stupid lusus because of my hatecrush on Vvris an' my flushcrush on you.  But Kar an' Kan an' evven Nep wwere pretty... nice to talk to."

"But not Sollux."

He bared his teeh and buried the point of the sickle in the pile.  "Never Sol.  Not after ya' left me."

"Do you maybe... understand though why?"

Eridan  rolled over on his stomach.

 

"Maybe," he muttered, his voice muffled by the pile.  She traced the edge of one jagged purple wing with her claw, careful not to let it catch on the delicate, crispy skin.

 

"Maybe he could be your new kismesis?"

 

"Wwho's to say that this is all gonna wwork, Fef?"

 

Eridan sat up suddenly and glared at her.  "You're placin' all your hopes on a flimsy little possibility - that your life witch powwers can bring evveryone back for a second try.  I don't think it wworks like that."

 

"But shouldn't we at least try?  Do you have any kind of..." she flailed her arms around, grabbing for the proverbial beveragereeds, "reason to believe that we shouldn't even try?"

 

"It's prolly pointless--"

 

"But is it entirely?"

 

He huffed and dropped her gaze again.

 

"No.  There's always a little bit of hope.  So long as someone out there clings t' life, they cling to hope."

 

\- * -

 

A time later, she was sleeping quietly on the pile as he rolled her off and onto the flat sand-colored stone surface.  A faint green tendril of the life symbol peeped out over her shoulder like a leaf of seaweed - she looked so natural, so peaceful there.

 

He pushed her off the cocoon entirely, watched her roll down to the ground and land in a messy heap of black hair and frail, white hopes.

 

He raised his gun, trailing the tip up and down just a hornsbreath away from her body.  A headshot?  It would destroy her glasses, yet...

 

The tip of his gun slipped lower. In the chest?

 

Destroying her bloodpusher just like she'd destroyed their moirailigence would be quite fitting.

 

Yes.

 

The recoil on the gun knocked him off balance, and he hovered above her body where it lay just out of reach of God Tier.  Then he landed, kneeling, and gave her a vicious, conflicted kiss before returning to his land without a second glance.

 

\- * -

 

Feferi's eyes opened just in time for Aradiabot to pick her up.  She was in her bed on Derse, somehow - but... why?  She felt no more powerful than she had when she had died. 

 

"What happened?"

 

"The Prince betrayed you.  But your hope is not lost.  There is another route to Godhood."

 

She ribbited, then jetted out the window as Feferi stared blankly into oblivion.  Anger, hurt and confusion was slowly building inside her, a cocktail of blackest hate slurring what had been a wonderfully pale romance.  Everything was muddy and sad.

 

But not lost.  Not just yet.

 

\- * -

 

The black fanged face smiled down at him, all teeth and feathers and the sturdiest web of plans Eridan had yet seen.  He couldn't find even a single thread to snap - not like his, not like hers had been.

 

]Here stood the winning team.  Certainty, power, victory - just like he'd always read and dreamed about - stretched out a red-streaked hand to him, then glanced over the troll's shoulder as a second set of wing beats reached his auricular sponge clots.

 

He wasn't surprised she'd found another way to reach the God Tier - nor that she was bearing down on him with murder in her eyes.  She had no hopes left but those wrapped around her own powers.

 

He was almost proud of her.

 

Even so, he intercepted her quickly as her anger faded to horror.

 

"Fef, do you remember wwhat the Black King said?"

 

Her eyes were wide as she stared at the foreign, green flashing beast behind him - he grabbed her fins gently and turned her to look at him.

 

"I-- I remember.  Eridan, what have you done?" Her voice started out faint and soft, then hardened as she stared at him.

 

"I foun' the other way to wwin.  Change sides."

 

She shook her head slowly, her eyes widening as she backed away from him.

 

"Aradia was right.  You did betray us.  Eridan, things aren't that simple!"

 

"I beg t' differ.  Ain't that ri--"

 

There was a gust of hot breath by his ear, then something sharper than any natural blade glided sideways through his protein digester, and he fell to the ground in two pieces to the sound of a ticking clock.

 

\- * -

 

Time stood still for a moment, and Feferi reeled backwards, almost forgetting how to fly.  Then she saw the three Aradiabots, waves of psychic energy flowing from their hands, and she ducked just in time to dodge the sweep of the sword that extinguished the  life of two of them.

 

Purple blood from the blade spattered her cheeks and glasses, and she gave a scream of rage as she followed him to the ground.

 

His sword swung again - she ducked, feeling a numb sense of loss as a piece of her horn clattered to the ground and was quickly restored- and she lunged, stabbing him with her trident.

 

As her powers grew, she could feel the vitality of those around her - the fading warmth of the two fallen Aradiabots, the conflicting flashes of Eridan's as he hung in limbo, and the impossible, infinite power of the monster before her.

 

His life would never run out.  His hopes would never die.

 

There was nothing left for her side but death.

 

Red tendrils pulsed around her in fury - she switched to Karkat's sickles, whirling around and slicing the crimson vines before they could reach her.  Out came Vriska's dice - she rolled them all once, willing for the last of her friend's luck.

 

Eight eights.

 

Blue light flared around her, following the path of the red and delivering a blast of power right to the monster's heart.  He snarled, pouncing on her like a savage woofbeast.

 

Right onto the lance.

 

The beast flew off, ripping out the lance like a bothersome thorn, then snapped it in half. A chainsaw roared beside her, and she gave the newly arisen Eridan a tight smile.

 

"You were right, Eridan - we're doomed.  We always were."

 

He revved the chainsaw.  "Doesn't mean that wwe can't still do some good."

 

\- *  -

 

They only lasted six minutes.  Six minutes and twelve seconds, to be precice.  And the last Aradiabot was calculated to be precice.

 

In her memory, the last fight of the godly Prince of Hope and Witch of Life would be what fueled her to return in time once more and face off Bec Noir in the only successful timeline.

 

They were both doomed, but they had died like heroes.

 

\- * -

 

She could never forgive herself that they had failed.

 

He could never forget that he, as a betrayer, had been betrayed.

 

So they drifted together, sharing memories and the last three bottles of Faygo - which wasn't all that good but it was all they had left of their memorytrophies - until Eridan spotted something beyond their dream bubble.

 

"It's them, Fef.  Kar an' Kan an' a buncha wweird aliens."

 

She had flown up beside him, staring into the white sky.

 

"The ones who succeeded?"

 

"Yeah.  Looks like they're headin' here - an' they need you."

 

Her white eyes stared deeply into his as she smiled.

 

"Let's meet them then, Prince Eridan.  Where there's life, there's hope - and I won't go anywhere without you."

 


End file.
